Web Database Development for Windows Platforms

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PREFACE:

Preface

As a database developer who grew up with the DOS Xbase environments (dBASE, FoxPro, and Clipper), and then moved to Microsoft Access upon its initial release, it made immediate sense to me that the marriage of the World Wide Web and database technology would one day occur. When I first witnessed the Web using the first Mosaic browser, I saw mostly static text content with some hypertext links using mile-long URLs. Hard as it was to imagine back then, I held out hope for the day when the Web would come alive with content emanating from databases. At the time, the tools just weren't there, and the pre-ODBC technology available at the time would only allow for custom approaches. Indeed, when I first began researching the prospect of publishing databases on the Web, in early 1994 there were only a handful of crude techniques for UNIX Web servers, but nothing widespread or refined enough to be considered a standard. Remember, at that time Microsoft hadn't awakened to the Internet, the Netscape browser was brand new, and HTML was still rapidly evolving.

I began collecting information on Internet database technology, much of which was publicly available on the Web, and in cutting-edge magazine articles and company white papers describing interesting new ways to connect a database to a Web site. I even wrote a couple of articles myself on the subject including "Developing Database Applications on the Internet" and "Link the Web with Your Relational Databases," both in the August 1995 issue of Data Based Advisor magazine (now known as e-Business Advisor from Advisor Publications, ....

Why This Book?

I wrote this book because I was continually asked by students, clients, and associates how to publish simple databases on the Web and how databases play a role in e-commerce. It is a natural question once one gets past the static nature of many Web sites. Since the people asking the question were not too Web savvy, their desire to publish a database on the Web was somewhat naive in terms of expectations. Why should it be any harder to view a Microsoft Access inventory table from a Web browser than from a PC desktop application? The answer, as we'll see in this book, centers around native HTML's inability to directly interface to a server database (although the emerging Dynamic HTML, known as DHTML, addresses this problem). Instead, some server-side development is required to implement database enabled Web sites. The technologies involved, however, are varied, and one of the purposes of this book is to provide an overview of the major ways to go about publishing a database on the Web for the Windows NT environment.

Still, we don't necessarily have to address these requirements from a highly technical perspective. Publishing a simple Access database takes some know-how, but not the level of technical awareness required to build a large complex e-commerce Web site. Thus, this book addresses the needs of the lower-end Web developer, possibly even a Web designer getting into dynamic content for the first time. There are plenty of other books on the market that cater to the higher-end developer. I wrote this book for the mass of developers who have standardized on the Windows Web platform, have all the necessary software on their servers, and are ready to experiment with Web databases.

Who Should Read This Book?

This book is directed towards corporate and independent developers who need to quickly get up to speed with contemporary ways to publish a database on a Web site for either the Internet or intranet using the Windows NT computing platform. The developer's company or client has already standardized on Microsoft Windows NT, Back Office, and Office and as a result already has most of the tools required to publish the database. Microsoft has made it much easier to facilitate Web databases by providing all the necessary technologies as part of existing mainstream product lines, e.g., the IIS Web server is part of Windows NT Server, SQL Server is part of Back Office, and Access is part of Office. All the tools are there, but the typical developer needs a place to start and a roadmap to outline the steps.

There are many such people in the target group for this book who just need to grasp the basics and who do not need to necessarily address the related though more advanced topics such a scalability, security and fire walls, transaction processing, application servers, etc. There are plenty of other books that focus on these areas. This book starts at the beginning.

How to Read This Book

The reader may approach the material found in this book in different ways depending on the specific Web database technologies she or he intends to use for future projects. Consequently, only certain chapters may be germane. If, for example, only Microsoft technologies are of interest, then the material describing JDBC in Chapter 6, which promotes cross platform Web database development, might be skipped. If the reader is not a programmer and wants to keep it that way, then some of the more automated HTML approaches would be appropriate (see the sections in Chapter 4 about the IIS Web Server's IDC feature and the SQL Server Web Assistant, or the section in Chapter 9 describing the Access Publish to the Web Wizard). If the reader is experienced with Microsoft Access VBA programming, then Chapter 9, which touches on custom HTML generation using VBA, has useful material. If the reader has a liking for the Java language and wants to build contemporary intranet applications, then Chapter 5 describing Visual J++ offers an important direction. Certainly, if the reader is an experienced programmer and wants to adopt favored technologies for the IIS Web server, Chapter 7 on Active Server and ADO and Chapter 8 on Visual InterDev will provide the most useful information.

Regardless of the reader's direction or goals, the CGI case study, based on Cold Fusion and found in Chapter 10, will be helpful in seeing the process of publishing a database on the Web from start to finish.

From frequent comments by my UCLA students, I've also found that the hardware issues discussed in Chapter 3 are often a complete mystery to the beginner, and this material should dispel many questions.

Lastly, for those readers using SQL Server as the back-end database for holding Web data, the SQL Server for NT section in Chapter 3 represents some real-life experience I obtained while doing a large e-commerce Web site.

How This Book Is Organized

This book starts at the very beginning, covering the basics with respect to setting up a database enabled Web site. I present an overview of available technologies, cover hardware and software issues, and demonstrate how to create a simple Web database. Many books do not take the time to present exactly how to get started, but rather assumes the reader has already taken the first steps, or has personnel to assist in getting started. I make no such assumptions. I then get into specific development platforms such as Microsoft Visual J++, cross platform JDBC, Active Server Pages and ADO. After this, we look at the Microsoft tool specifically designed for creating database Web sites, Visual InterDev, and show some automated approaches for publishing desktop databases such as Access. I wrap up the book by presenting a complete case study using the Cold Fusion CGI-based environment.

Chapter 1 - expands on this Preface by setting the stage for presenting your options for building a database-enabled Web site. This chapter represents "ground zero" for important establishing directions when building a Web database.

Chapter 2 - defines a number of technical areas upon which Web database technology is based, including discussions of CGI, server API platforms, server side includes, Java, and Microsoft Active Server technologies.

Chapter 3 - discusses special hardware considerations for implementing a Web site having database connections. This chapter is crucial for departmental staff having little or no IS support within their organization or independent developers who are new to the Web.

Chapter 4 - focuses on building simple database sites using tools integrated into Windows NT and SQL Server such as the Internet Database Connector and the SQL Server Web Assistant.

Chapter 5 - highlights the Microsoft Visual J++ development environment for creating Windows-based intranet applications using the Microsoft Windows Foundation Classes.

Chapter 6 - overviews the JDBC API from Sun as a technique for connecting databases to Web sites requiring cross platform capabilities.

Chapter 7- introduces the Microsoft Active Server platform including a description of the Active Server Pages programming environment that uses server-side VBScript programming.

Chapter 8 - provides a reference for the Microsoft Visual InterDev tool that is part of the Visual Studio suite. InterDev is the primary tool from Microsoft that enables the integration of ASP code and data connections.

Chapter 9 - shows how to publish desktop databases using a variety of techniques including Access Publish to the Web Wizard.

Chapter 10 - presents a case study that examines the design and implementation of an actual Web database using the Cold Fusion CGI-based tool.

A Goal for the Reader

As a writer, the surest indication that I've done my job of disseminating information is for my readers to use the material I've provided. Therefore, my goal for the reader is to actually publish a database on the Web using one or more of the technologies and techniques discussed in this book. Start small by creating a simple intranet application that prompts the user for some selection criteria, runs a query, and displays some results in HTML. Or try building a guest registration page for your current Web site and save the form contents in a database. The hardest part of embracing any new technology is getting your feet wet, but once you gain the experience, you'll wonder how you ever got along without database-enabled Web sites.

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